SINGAPORE: Buyers of assisted living flats in Bukit Batok face a longer wait for their homes after the Housing and Development Board (HDB) terminated the services of the project’s main contractor over poor progress.
The units in Harmony Village @ Bukit Batok, launched for sale in February 2021, were the first assisted living flats introduced in Singapore.
Known as Community Care Apartments, they are a new type of public housing for residents aged 65 and above, featuring senior-friendly design features and subscriptions to care services.
HDB said on Friday (Dec 15) that the completion date for the flats will be delayed by about three to four months to September or October 2024.
Giving a timeline of events, HDB said the contract of the main contractor, JSM Construction Group, was terminated on Jan 9, 2023, due to “unsatisfactory site progress”.
The new contractor, QingJian International (South Pacific) Group Development Co, was appointed on Feb 14. The company needed time to review the construction status and mobilise resources to resume construction works on-site, said HDB.
Despite the delay of almost two months due to the change in the contractor, HDB said it had assessed at the time that they could catch up on lost time by implementing various measures to speed things up.
These include deploying more machinery, mobilising additional subcontractors, as well as continuing quieter works such as plastering and painting after office hours and on weekends within the permissible noise limits set by the National Environment Agency.
The plan was to maintain the Probable Completion Date of the second quarter of 2024 that had been earlier communicated to flat buyers.
However, while progress has been made, HDB said it was not able to make up for the lost time as planned, adding that other operating constraints were encountered on-site.
“For example, as the work site is situated close to existing residential areas, the allowable working hours for noisy construction works (drilling and jackhammering) are limited, and some of these works will require more time,” HDB explained.